A solemn, sombre, leaden Saturday – the muscles and joints of the day lie slack. Silence entombed in stillness – dread Sabbath. Who can be a believer on this day? I’ve come so far to shed tears here at last in the city of my heart. No one stirs. Faith creeps...
Not the empty tomb but the uninhabited cross. Look long enough and you will see the arms put on leaves. Not a crown of thorns but a crown of flowers haloing it, with a bird singing as though perched on paradise’s threshold. R.S. Thomas (1913-2000),...
No pain; no palm. No thorns; no throne. No gall; no glory. No cross; no crown. William Penn (1644-1718).
Since I am coming to that holy room Where with thy choir of saints for evermore I shall be made thy music; as I come I tune the instrument here at the door, And what I must do then, think here before. While my physicians by their love are grown Cosmographers,...
Man at the best a creature frail and vain, In knowledge ignorant, in strength but weak, Subject to sorrows, losses, sickness, pain, Each storm his state, his mind, his body break, From some of these he never finds cessation, But day or night, within, without,...
This isn’t death, it’s glory! It isn’t dark, it’s light. It isn’t stumbling, groping, Or even faith, it’s sight! This isn’t grief, it’s having My last tear wiped away. It’s sunrise, it’s the morning Of my eternal day! This isn’t even praying, It’s speaking face to...
And whereas I had said; letters and photos And seen myself muscling through the flames, You would go back especially for your houseplants – Those dreamy weeping figs, this stocky yucca – What’s worth remembering remembered, leaving Both hands free for carrying out the...
I held your hand. The ancient bone beneath the flesh had been there since the dawn of time: you were an immemorial fact which none could cancel. Our staunch pact could not be broken. None could rinse away the rhyme and reason of that Elie beach with everything...
…my soul was stirred and once again you came, a passing vision, a glimmer of beauty pure. In fullness beats my heart, feeling once again the resurrection of divinity, and inspiration, and life, and tears, and love. Alexander Pushkin...
God grant me the serenity, To accept the things I cannot change, The courage to change the things I can, And the wisdom to know the difference. Living one day at a time; Enjoying one moment at a time; Accepting hardship as a pathway to peace; Taking, as...
Have you built your ship of death? O, have you? O, build your ship of death, for you will need it. D.H. Lawrence (1885-1930).